The instructions for building the Tabernacle in (Exodus 25) read like an architectural blueprint in the Hebrew Bible. The Targum Jonathan adds theological meaning to nearly every material and measurement, transforming construction specs into a theology of divine presence.
The Hebrew says "let them make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them." The Targum rewrites this: "they shall make a Sanctuary to My Name, that My Shekinah (the Divine Presence) may dwell among them." Two changes in one sentence. First, the sanctuary is dedicated to God's Name, not to God directly. Second, it is not God who dwells there but His Shekinah—His indwelling presence, a concept the Targum carefully distinguishes from God's unknowable essence. The Shekinah is how God is experienced. The sanctuary houses that experience.
The offerings must come from "every one whose heart is willing, but not by constraint." The Hebrew says "every man whose heart moves him." The Targum adds the explicit negative: no coercion. The Tabernacle must be built entirely from voluntary gifts, and the Targum makes sure no one misses this point.
The Ark receives detailed treatment. The Targum calls its cover the "kaphortha"—the mercy-seat—and adds a specific measurement absent from the Hebrew: "its depth shall be a handbreadth." The cherubim atop the Ark are called "kerubaia," and the Targum says God will "appoint My Word" to meet Moses there, speaking "from above the mercy-seat, between the two kerubaia." The Hebrew says "I will meet with you there." The Targum inserts "My Word" (Memra) as an intermediary, a characteristic Aramaic way of protecting God's transcendence while affirming His communication.
The showbread on the golden table is called "interior bread" set "before Me continually." The Targum's seven-branched candelabrum must be "pure beaten gold" with cups described as "calyxes adorned with their figurations." Every detail emphasizes that the Tabernacle is not a human building project but a precise replica of something Moses saw on the mountain—a heavenly pattern reproduced in earthly materials, designed to give the Shekinah a home among mortals.